MSU faculty member weighs in on the spread of misinformation during COVID-19 pandemic

by Sam Kealhofer, Intern on the A&S Research Support Team

The psychological processes involved in the spread of misinformation during times of heightened stress—such as the COVID-19 pandemic—is the topic of a new article by Colleen Sinclair, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Mississippi State University. In an August edition of Psychology Today, Sinclair explores the psychological processes involved in the spread of misinformation and narrows the causes of misbehavior to a few critical element in her article, “Why Misinformation Goes Viral."

Using recent studies as evidence, Sinclair pinpoints certain characteristics of the pandemic as factors driving the increase spread of misinformation on social media. The article explains that the spread of misinformation increases when there is significant bad news circulating through long “diffusion chains” in times of heightened life-altering or disastrous events and when the scientific method is particularly slow to respond to the events. Sinclair explains the spreading of misinformation turns into a defense mechanism, as people look to take any action possible to protect themselves during times of uncertainty.

Misinformation and dangerous speech are new research focuses for Sinclair. She currently has two grant proposals in process to expand on her research. Her proposal, “When virus misinformation goes viral: Effects of social media misinformation of geospatial and temporal spread of COVID-19,” seeks funding from the National Institutes of Health. Her second proposal, “What’s in a meme? Examining threat content in the anti-Muslim memes of India and the U.S.,” seeks funding from the Facebook Foundational Integrity Research of Misinformation grant.

Sinclair said she wants to focus on misinformation and dangerous speech because she realized the current “toxic triangle” theory, which she teaches in her course on the psychology of evil, lacks a focus on dangerous speech and the crucial role it plays in spreading collective evil.

During her time at the Olga Lengyel Institute for Holocaust Studies in New York City, while speaking with Holocaust survivors Sinclair noticed they all focused on the language and propaganda used to justify the prejudice and actions taken against Jewish people. As Irving Roth, one of the Holocaust survivors, said, “Words become slogans, slogans become actions, actions become murder. And no one did anything to stop it. Disbelief fueled indifference.”

Sinclair has used her expertise in psychology to study an array of other topics such as interpersonal and intergroup relations as well as open science and reproducibility, but her new focus on misinformation and dangerous speech is best understood as an extension of her research into aggression, intimate violence and the psychology of evil. An early experience standing up to a bully lead Sinclair to narrow her research “to chase bullies, online or in person.”

Sinclair currently serves on the collaborative project, “Providing actionable intelligence to increase the capabilities of the warfighter by use of MSU Open Source Exploitation System,” a multi-million dollar project with the Department of Defense to utilize open source data for intelligence purposes. The team used cellphone location data purchased from marketers to track the movements of Russian generals. The study shows how the global market’s collecting and reselling reams of user data, mostly for marketing and advertising reasons, can also be used to give clues about the behavior of adversaries or identify suspects in the vicinity of crimes.

Sinclair also actively studies bullying and school safety. She has two proposals pending to study aggression and threat assessment protocol in high schools. She just completed a collaborative $1,000,000 project funded by the National Institute of Justice School Safety

Initiative entitled “When does rejection trigger aggression? A multi-method examination of a multimotive model,” which seeks to identify key predictors and buffers of aggression within high school students with the aim to improve individual well-being and intergroup relations.

Sinclair’s years of study into issues like aggression, bullying and the psychology of evil has provided her deepened insight during the COVID-19 pandemic and the spread of misinformation and vitriol it has spawned.

In an effort to contribute insight and solutions to the various challenges facing the nation, the College of Arts & Sciences will continue to highlight faculty research in our “Research in the Headlines” series each Monday and Wednesday. For more research in the headlines, visit https://www.cas.msstate.edu/research/researchintheheadlines/; and for information about the College of Arts & Sciences or the Department of Psychology visit https://www.cas.msstate.edu/ or https://www.psychology.msstate.edu/.